CHAPTER TWENTY

NELL’S HEART BEGAN to beat faster. Her throat became even dryer. She moistened her lips and said, “Shall we sit on the sofa?”

And then she blushed scarlet, blood rushing to her face.

Black smiled. “Yes,” he said, and pushed up from his chair. But he didn’t come around the table and take her hand; instead, he crossed to the door and locked it. Then, he turned to look at her.

They stared at each other for a long, long moment.

Nell’s heart beat even faster. The blush stayed hot in her cheeks.

Black walked back to the table. He should have been intimidating, with that strong nose and those dangerous cheekbones and the sheer size of him, but he wasn’t, because his lips were curved in a faint smile, and when he halted at the table and looked down at her, she saw that the smile was in his eyes, too. It wasn’t a rake’s smile at all—confident, arrogant, predatory—but something much more tender.

He reached down and gently removed her spectacles, folded them, and placed them on the table. Then he held out his hand and drew Nell to her feet. Emotions churned inside her. She felt shy and self-conscious and flustered and nervous and a little afraid, and yet every fiber in her body was taut with anticipation and expectancy and eagerness.

How could she be eager and afraid at the same time? It wasn’t rational. She wanted to sit with Mordecai Black on the sofa, wanted to kiss him, so why was her heart beating so absurdly fast and why was she unable to look him in the eye as they both sat?

Black didn’t release her hand. “Relax, Nell.”

Nell tried to relax, but it was impossible. She was too tense, too shy, too eager, too nervous. She was certain her fingers were trembling in Black’s clasp.

“You look very like a duchess right now,” he said softly.

“I do?” Her gaze lifted to his—and was caught. Black truly did have beautiful eyes. Those dark, dark irises. Those long, long lashes.

He smiled at her. “There’s no need to be nervous.”

“I know,” Nell said, and blushed even more hotly, and why was she blushing? She was the one who’d suggested sitting on the sofa. “I know,” she said, more strongly. “But I can’t seem to stop it.”

“Perhaps I can help you with that.” Black turned her hand over, exposing her palm, and brushed his knuckles lightly across it. Every muscle in Nell’s body clenched. She shivered.

Black glanced at her, a smiling glance, almost a mischievous glance, and stroked his knuckles across her palm again. How could her skin be so sensitive? How could that light touch make her tremble so?

The gleam of mischief in Black’s eyes became more pronounced. He raised her palm to his mouth and kissed it lightly, his lips warm and soft—and then licked.

Nell’s heart seemed to stop beating.

Black licked again, and his tongue was warm, soft, supple, marvelous.

Nell shivered convulsively. Dear Lord. How could a man’s tongue do such things to her?

Black lowered her hand. “Kiss me, Nell,” he said, and Nell didn’t hesitate; she leaned closer and found his lips, and the shyness and nervousness evaporated and all that was left was eagerness, a desperate desire to taste him again, to reacquaint himself with his beautiful, sinful, perfect mouth.

When they finally broke for breath, Nell felt dazed and disoriented, as if Black was as potent as brandy. “Shall we take it a little further?” he asked, his voice low and slightly husky.

Nell blinked, and managed to focus on his face. His cheeks were slightly flushed, his lips rosier than usual, his eyes very dark. “How much further?”

“Not too much. Just a little.”

“All right,” she said, recklessly. “How?”

“Like this,” Black said, and he took hold of her waist, his hands huge and warm, and lifted her effortlessly, and settled her sideways on his lap.

Nell tensed.

“Relax,” Black said, and cupped the back of her head with one hand and kissed her.

After a moment, Nell did relax. It was impossible not to when Black kissed her so tenderly.

They kissed, and kissed, and then Black said, “A little more?” and Nell said, “All right,” breathlessly, recklessly, and Black took her by the waist and lifted her again. “Knees on either side of me,” he said, and she obeyed—and found herself sitting astride his knees.

Nell froze. “Is this sex?”

“No. It’s just kissing. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Nell hesitated. It felt very intimate to be straddling him like this. Alarming. Wanton. Her gown had ridden up to her knees, almost exposing her garters. She felt the same mix of emotions she’d felt when Black had led her to the sofa—shyness, nervousness, eagerness. There was a skip of excitement in her blood, a frisson of fear.

Black released her waist and when she didn’t scramble off him, he took first one of her hands and then the other and lifted them to his mouth, kissed them lightly, and placed them on his shoulders.

Nell’s heart began to beat very fast.

“Kiss me,” Black whispered.

Nell hesitated, and then did as he asked, leaning towards him, her arms sliding around his neck. She kissed him shyly.

Black kissed her back, his hands at her waist.

They kissed like that for several minutes, and then Black drew her closer. Nell shivered with delight. Dimly, at the back of her mind, she was aware that she ought to be alarmed that her breasts were crushed to his broad chest, alarmed that her legs straddled his muscular thighs—such a scandalous way to kiss, so immodest, surely no respectable lady would ever kiss like this?—but she wasn’t alarmed; she exulted in it, pressing closer, delving more deeply into his mouth.

A rhythm built between them, not just their mouths and their tongues, but their bodies, Nell swaying into him, Black gathering her closer. She felt aflame with heat, with sensation, with a strange, desperate, visceral need.

Black broke the kiss. He was panting. He looked at heated as she was. “Want to go even further?”

“Yes,” Nell said, without any hesitation.

Black kissed her again. “Tell me if you want me to stop and I will.”

Nell kissed him back, certain that whatever he did next she wouldn’t ask him to stop, but the kiss seemed no different from before—just as sinful, just as perfect—and then she realized that it wasn’t what his mouth was doing that was different, but what his hand was doing.

Black’s right hand was no longer at her waist, but on her knee—and then it was under the rucked-up hem of her gown, skimming over stocking and garter before touching naked skin, climbing her thigh, moving slowly, his touch light and tickling, making her shiver, making her heart leap in her chest, making her want and fear at the same time.

Nell tensed and stopped kissing him.

“Do you want me to stop?” Black whispered against her mouth.

“I don’t know,” Nell whispered back.

“It gets better. A lot better.”

His hand slid a few tickling inches higher and Nell shivered again and her heart leapt in her chest again and she didn’t know what to do—so she stayed on his lap while his questing fingers crept up her thigh, tickling, making her tremble. They were no longer kissing, but their lips still clung together, and each breath she inhaled was his, and each breath he inhaled was hers—and Nell breathed him in, and trembled and quivered, while Black’s hand stole higher, gliding over her skin, until his fingers brushed the little nest of hair at the junction of her thighs.

Every muscle in her body clenched, including muscles she’d not known she had—in her loins, in her womb.

“No drawers, Nell?” Black whispered against her mouth.

Nell squeezed her eyes shut, and struggled to breathe. “They’re not respectable.”

He laughed at that, softly, and kissed her, his tongue briefly in her mouth, and he didn’t tell her that what he was doing was even more disreputable than wearing drawers; instead, his fingers feathered their way through the hair and found her nether lips.

Nell gasped, and stiffened.

“Relax,” Black said. “Enjoy.” And then his fingers began to move.

Nell lost the ability to speak, to think, almost to breathe. She should have been mortified that his hand was between her legs, but there was no space in her head for emotions like shame and mortification, no space even for incredulity, no space for anything at all. She was no longer a thinking creature but a feeling creature, her entire being focused on Black’s skillful fingers and the extraordinary sensations they were evoking. She found herself gasping, found herself shifting helplessly as his thumb found a spot that was exceedingly sensitive, and then one of his long, wicked fingers was inside her, where she was hot and damp and pulsing.

Every muscle in her body clenched.

“Does that hurt?”

Nell couldn’t speak; her throat was too tight. She shook her head.

Black slid a second finger inside her. “What about that?”

Nell trembled, and her body gave a great pulse of pleasure and seemed to clench around Black’s fingers as if wanting to hold them there forever. Nell almost groaned with the sheer bliss of it. She managed to shake her head again.

“Relax,” Black said again, and his voice was hoarse, slightly breathless, and he sounded as if he wanted to groan, too. “Enjoy it, Nell.”

Nell didn’t relax—it was impossible to relax while his fingers were delving inside her and his thumb was moving in small, tortuous, blissful circles. Enjoy, Black had said, and how could she not enjoy the sensations his clever hand was producing? This was seduction. This was what made a man a rake. This wonderful, shocking thing that Mordecai Black was doing with his thumb and fingers.

She shivered and trembled and struggled to breathe and shifted helplessly, her arms around Black’s neck, her mouth pressed to his. Her whole body was tight, tense, pulsing, focused wholly on Black’s fingers, on his merciless thumb, on the inexorable rhythm he was building. Tighter, tighter, like a bowstring about to break.

“Let go, Nell,” Black whispered against her lips, and she didn’t know what he meant—and then suddenly she did know, and the tension discharged in great jolts of pleasure, overwhelming and shocking and intense.

It was some time before she stopped shuddering and caught her breath, and even longer before she caught her wits. Slowly Nell’s awareness expanded beyond her body. Mordecai Black’s hand still nestled warmly between her legs, although his fingers were no longer inside her—but even as she noticed that, Black moved, withdrawing his hand, putting both arms around her. Nell closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his chest, feeling dazed and languorous and deeply, profoundly contented. More contented than she’d ever been in her life, as if every fiber in her body hummed with happiness. Black’s chest was broad, his arms warm around her, his heart beating strongly beneath her ear. I could fall asleep like this.

But while part of her would have been quite happy to fall asleep, part of her wanted to know what on earth had just happened.

“Was that sex?” Nell asked.

“It’s a sexual act,” Black said. “But it’s not what I’d call sex. I’d call it a prelude.”

“There’s more?”

“There’s a lot more.”

She wanted it. God, how she wanted it. “What’s it called? What you just did.”

“It has lots of names. My favorite is pattes d’araignées.”

Nell blinked. “Spider’s legs?”

“If you’re going to be literal, yes. But whenever I hear those words, I don’t think about spiders, I think about sex.”

Curiosity swamped her. Nell bit her lip, and then asked, “Do you hear them often?”

Black was silent for a moment. “Not for years.” His voice sounded sad.

Nell sat up on his lap. “What?” she said. “What is it?”

For a moment she thought Black wouldn’t answer, and then he said, “I call it pattes d’araignées because my first lover was French. That’s what she called it.”

“You miss her,” Nell said.

Black nodded.

The warm contentment dissolved.

“You loved her.”

Black nodded again.

Do you still love her? But Nell couldn’t bring herself to ask, because she thought the answer might be Yes, and she didn’t want to hear Black say it.

“Her name was Cécile,” Black said. “Comtesse de Chevigny-le-Vieux. She was an émigré. A widow.” His hands were at her waist, warm, holding her. His voice and his expression were faintly pensive. “She was thirty, I was eighteen.”

Nell stiffened in outrage. “She seduced you?”

Black laughed. “No, I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“But she was thirty, and you were a boy!”

“No, I was a man,” Black said. “With a man’s desires and a boy’s inexperience, and Cécile was exactly what I needed.”

Nell shook her head.

“She didn’t seduce me,” Black said, firmly. “My interest in her was quite obvious.”

“You approached her?” She couldn’t imagine an eighteen-year-old earl’s bastard approaching a thirty-year-old comtesse, but Black was assertive.

Black laughed again. “Heavens, no.”

“Then how?”

Black looked at her, and hesitated, and then he seemed to give a shrug, not with his shoulders, but with his mouth, the tiniest movement, a faint compression of his lips, as if he said to himself Why not? “Cécile was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. L’incomparable, everyone called her, and she was: Incomparable.” His eyes were smiling, as if he dwelled on a fond memory. “I’d never been intimate with a woman—although God knew I wanted to. Of course I had fantasies about Cécile. Every man who wasn’t a eunuch was having fantasies about Cécile.” His mouth twisted up at one corner, wryly.

“Father and I were invited to a house party—and Cécile was there, and one day I came across her in the rose garden, just her and me, and I was so aware of her.” Black grimaced. “My body betrayed me, and of course she noticed. I couldn’t speak I was so embarrassed, but Cécile just laughed and asked if I’d ever had congress with a woman, and then she offered to be my lover.” Black grunted a laugh and shook his head. “The one woman in England that every man wanted, and she chose me. It was . . . unbelievable.”

Nell didn’t wonder why the comtesse had chosen him. Black would have been stunning as an eighteen-year-old, young and strong and vigorous, an edge of wildness to him. And also innocent and vulnerable.

“She didn’t seduce me,” Black said again, with heavy emphasis on the didn’t, as if he saw the disapproval on her face. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

Nell tried to keep her voice neutral. “What was it then?”

“We were outsiders, both of us, watched and whispered about, both lonely, both wanting companionship, and Cécile recognized that, she saw that we’d be good for each other, that despite the difference in our ages we’d make each other happy.”

It still sounded like a seduction to Nell. A thirty-year-old woman and an eighteen-year-old boy? “What did your father think?”

“He was shocked, of course. Everyone was. And envious, I think, although he never said it. And I think . . . relieved.”

Nell frowned. “Relieved? Why?”

“Because it was the scandal of the Season. Everyone was talking about it. My illegitimacy was suddenly far less important than the fact that I was sleeping with Cécile, that I’d succeeded where dozens had failed. I was no longer merely Dereham’s bastard; I was the man who was having a liaison with the most sought-after woman in the ton.” Black grinned, a sharp, sardonic flash of his teeth. “Notoriety for all the right reasons.”

Nell almost rolled her eyes at him. Men.

“The next year, we were less of a scandal, and by the third Season, we weren’t much of a scandal at all. We were no more shocking than the Duke of Clarence and Mrs. Jordan.”

“You were together for three years?” Nell said, taken aback. Perhaps Black was right: it hadn’t been a seduction.

“Five years,” he said.

“Five years?”

Black nodded.

“What happened?” Nell asked tentatively. “Why did it end?”

“Oh . . .” He shrugged with one shoulder. “Cécile was unhappy in England, wanted to go back to France—but of course that was impossible. So she chose to go to America.”

“Did you want to go with her?” Nell asked, even more tentatively.

“What I wanted was to marry her, but she wouldn’t have me, said she was too old for me, that I’d come to regret it.”

Nell’s eyebrows lifted. “You asked her to marry you?”

“Several times. I was quite desperately in love with her.”

Nell looked at him soberly. We were outsiders, he’d said. Whispered about. Lonely. For five years the comtesse had made him happy. He’d loved her—desperately—and asked her to marry him . . . and she’d chosen to go to America instead.

How hurt he must have been.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Black smiled at her. “It was a long time ago. And Cécile was right: it was a young man’s puppy love. I would have grown out of it.”

“Even so.” Nell tried to smile back at him, but her smile was crooked and for some reason there were tears stinging her eyes, so she put her arms around him and hugged him, partly to hide the tears, and partly because she needed to hold him.

Black’s arms came around her, and they were so warm and strong and comforting that Nell’s eyes stung even more.

Ten minutes ago it had felt debauched and wanton to sit astride Mordecai Black’s lap with her arms around him; now it didn’t feel like that at all. It felt purely comforting. Nell heard the clock ticking faintly on the mantelpiece, she heard Black’s heart beat beneath her ear. Her eyes slowly stopped stinging.

She went back over everything Black had said about Cécile. Five years.

The woman had shaped him, just as surely as his childhood in Shoreditch had shaped him and his father’s belated claiming of him had shaped him. The comtesse had taken an inexperienced youth and turned him into a lover that women flocked after, a man whose conquests other men envied.

Who would Black have become if he’d not met Cécile that day? If she’d not somehow noticed his interest in her, if she’d not proposed a liaison?

Curiosity flickered in her breast. “Mordecai? How did your body betray you in the rose garden?” What did that ambiguous statement mean?

Black gave a grunt of laughter. “Let’s just say that I hadn’t learned to control my desires.”

“I don’t understand.”

Black inhaled, exhaled, seemed to consider his response. Finally, he said, “Nell, sit up.”

Nell stopped hugging him and sat up on his lap. “What?”

“When a man wants to have sex, his body signals it very obviously.”

Nell’s brow creased. “It does?”

“Yes,” Black said, and then his cheeks flushed faintly, as if he was embarrassed, and he said, “Nell, look,” and he pointed, and she looked where he was pointing—and it was very obvious.

“It means I want to have sex with you.”

Nell stared down at Black’s loins. Something was tenting his breeches. Something that was evidently rather large and rather hard. Something that hadn’t been there before.

“What is it?”

“It’s my bâton.”

“Bâton?” She glanced at Black’s face. “Is that what Cécile called it?”

“It’s one of the names she used.”

“What are the others?”

“Le brigadier. Braquemard.” He flushed faintly again. “That’s a type of sword.”

“I know,” Nell said. And a brigadier was a soldier. Interesting names for whatever was in his breeches.

“Le membre virile. That’s probably the most accurate name,” Black said.

Nell looked down at his lap again. That thing—soldier, sword, baton—was mere inches from her own loins. She must have almost been touching it when she kissed him. Perhaps she had been touching it and not noticed? But even as she formed that thought, she knew the answer: She hadn’t touched it, because Black’s braquemard was not something one could fail to notice.

Nell stared down at the strange, fierce shape beneath Black’s breeches—and was gripped with the most intense curiosity she’d ever experienced in her life. The sort of curiosity that had led Pandora to open her box and Bluebeard’s wife to unlock the forbidden room. She glanced at Black’s face again. “May I see it?”

To her surprise, he blushed. Not a faint, self-conscious blush, as he had when he’d called his bâton a sword, but a full, deep blush that reddened his entire face.

Nell blushed herself, in response to his embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she said hastily, and tried to scramble from his lap, but Black caught her by the waist, stopping her.

“Nell . . . it’s not that I don’t want you to see it, it’s just that I hadn’t thought you’d want to tonight.”

Nell averted her face, unable to meet his eyes. Am I more wanton than he thought I was?

“I don’t want to rush you,” Black said softly. “I don’t want to push you into something you don’t feel ready for. But if you truly wish to see my bâton, I’ll gladly show you.” One of his hands cupped her chin and tilted her face gently, brought her gaze to his. “Would you like that, Nell?”

Nell was too ashamed of her curiosity to give him an answer.

Black’s thumb brushed across her lower lip, a feather-light caress, and then his hand slid around to her nape and he pulled her closer and kissed her, a kiss that was gentle and sweet and tender, a kiss that made her shame evaporate, that made everything all right.

“Would you like me to show you tonight, or would you rather wait?” Black whispered against her mouth. “Tell me truthfully, Nell.”

At this moment, Nell wanted anything he was willing to give her. “I’d like to see it,” she confessed, and felt her cheeks bloom with color.

“Then you shall.” He kissed her again—lightly—and released the nape of her neck.

“Should I get off you?”

He caught her waist. “No, stay there.” And then he frowned, and said, “I am not going to tumble you on this sofa. That’s a promise, Nell. Pattes d’araignées is as far as it goes tonight.”

Part of her was relieved to hear this, and part of her—the wanton part—was disappointed. “All right,” she said.

Black released her waist and unbuttoned his breeches. He’d said he would gladly show her, but he blushed as he slid the buttons from their holes, a streak of color high on each cheek, accenting his strong, slanting cheekbones. Nell tried to imagine lifting her gown and baring that most private part of herself while he watched fully clothed. It would be beyond embarrassing; it would be mortifying. Her whole body tensed at the thought. “You don’t have to,” she said hastily. “Not if you don’t want to.”

His fingers stilled, his dark eyes met hers. “Oh, I want to,” he said softly, and it was her turn to blush.

She blushed while he finished unbuttoning the breeches, blushed while he pushed the plackets aside exposing yet another layer of clothing—linen this time, soft and thin, straining tightly over his bâton, letting her see its shape more clearly—blushed as Black unfastened his drawers—two buttons only, swiftly done—blushed as he bared himself to her.

Nell stared. His membre virile was an eager organ, straining upwards like a soldier standing to attention. Strong and aggressively masculine, and yet at the same time oddly vulnerable—such naked skin, more naked than any skin she’d ever seen, pinker than any skin she’d ever seen. And large. Astonishingly large. It seemed impossible that an organ of such girth and length had ever fitted inside Black’s breeches.

She didn’t need to wonder what its purpose was; it was meant to go where Black’s fingers had been earlier, inside her—and at that thought the muscles in her womb clenched in a spasm of desire.

What would his virile member feel like inside her? That bluntly rounded crest? The strong trunk that rose so vigorously from his drawers?

Her internal muscles clenched again.

He would be hot inside her, definitely. She could tell that just by looking. The smooth, vulnerable skin looked as if it burned with the fiercest of fevers.

She glanced at Black’s face, and found him watching her. “Does it hurt?”

He blinked, and his eyebrows rose, and then he said, “You mean the first time? I believe it often does, but thereafter it shouldn’t.”

It was Nell’s turn to blink. She wondered what on earth he was talking about—and then she realized. “No, I don’t mean that. I mean does it hurt you when it’s like this?”

His eyebrows rose higher. “Me? No.”

“It looks painful.”

He laughed. “A little uncomfortable, but not painful.”

“Are you certain it doesn’t hurt?” Nell said dubiously, looking back at his virile member. It looked so hot.

“It aches a bit. But not in a bad way.”

She understood what he meant, because she was aching, too. An ache deep inside her, as if her body lacked something it desperately craved.

“I can take care of it easily enough,” Black said. “Don’t worry about it, Nell.”

She dragged her gaze from his virile member back to his face. “What do you mean, take care of it?”

“Branlage, patinage—whatever you want to call it. It’s something anyone can do for themselves, man or woman.”

“It is?”

“Of course,” Black said, and then he hesitated and said, “You mean . . . you’ve never done it to yourself?”

Nell shook her head.

“Well, you can, you know.”

“Oh,” Nell said, and thought about that for a moment, and then she asked, “Is that what you’ll do, to stop it aching?”

Black nodded.

Nell felt an intense surge of curiosity. How would he do it? He was shaped so differently from her. She bit her lip to stop herself asking, but her curiosity must have been evident on her face, because Black said, “Nell?” And then, cautiously, as if he wasn’t certain whether he’d offend her or not, “Do you want to see me do it?”

Nell felt herself go scarlet. She didn’t know where to look. Not at Black’s face, not at his virile member, not anywhere.

“It’s all right if you do,” Black said. “There’s nothing wrong with watching.”

Nell glanced at him uncertainly.

“Cécile used to watch. I liked it when she did.” Black blushed as he made this admission, high across his cheekbones.

Nell considered his words for several seconds. She rather thought that she disliked the comtesse intensely and that she didn’t want to be at all like her—and then she thought, What does Cécile matter? She’s long gone. What mattered was Mordecai Black, who’d shown her his virile member and who’d said that he didn’t mind if she watched him deal with its ache—and she did want to watch, most desperately. She hesitated, and bit her lip, and said, “Are you certain you wouldn’t mind?”

“I’m certain.”

“I would mind,” Nell confessed. “If it were me.”

“Of course you would,” Black said. “You’ve never done it before, let alone with an audience. But I’ve done it many hundreds of times, and, ah . . . an audience can make it more piquant.” His blush deepened, as if this admission was something to be embarrassed about.

“Have you done it with all of your lovers?” Nell asked.

“All but one.”

Which made the comtesse even less relevant. Nell felt happier. She gave a nod. “All right.”

Black took his virile member in one hand, his long, strong fingers wrapping around the sturdy shaft—and seeing him touch it made Nell’s internal muscles clench again.

“Are you certain?” Black asked. “Because this is a lot further than I’d intended to take it tonight.”

Nell’s throat was almost too tight for speech—not with fear, but with anticipation. She had to swallow before she could say, “Yes.”

“All right,” Black said, and he moved his hand in a slow gliding stroke, all the way up to that blunt, rosy crest, and then down. He repeated it: up, then down.

The muscles in Nell’s womb clenched again. She watched, transfixed, as Black’s hand moved on his virile member—and then glanced at his face. He was watching her, not his hand.

Nell blushed hotly, but couldn’t look away from his dark eyes. This was intimacy. This. Sitting on Mordecai Black’s lap while he stroked away his ache, wanting him, feeling muscles clench helplessly inside her.

Nell realized she’d stopped breathing. She inhaled, and looked down at his virile member again, watched his hand glide up and down, heard the whisper of skin on skin, felt heat rise in her body and pulse in her womb.

Black was squeezing tightly now, his knuckles whitening, the strokes shorter, hard and fast, rough, almost brutal, as if he was pumping his virile member—and as if to complete that metaphor, pearly beads of moisture appeared on that straining red crest and spilled downwards, and his hand moved even faster and the shaft glistened in the candlelight, and the sound of skin on skin changed, became louder, more urgent.

Nell watched his hand move, feeling her body pulse in time with his strokes. A sense of tightness was building inside her. She snatched a glance at his face and saw the tension there, saw that his cheeks were flushed and his eyes half-closed—and then she looked down again and he was holding his member in both hands, his right hand pumping, his left cupped over the crest, and his whole body jerked, and her body did a little jerk of its own, a jolt of pleasure, not nearly as strong as when his fingers had been inside her, but still good.

She looked at Black’s face. His head was tilted fractionally back and his eyes were closed. All the tension had drained from his body. He opened his eyes and caught her staring at him. His pupils were more dilated than she’d ever seen in a person before, but even as she watched they contracted again, the dark brown of his irises expanding.

Black blinked, and then his eyebrows and his mouth quirked slightly and he said, “What did you think?”

I think I want to see you do that again.

“It was interesting,” Nell said, and felt herself blush. “It wasn’t at all like what you did to me.” Hard and fast and almost brutal. “Did it not hurt you?”

Black shook his head.

Nell looked down at his lap again, where he still clasped his virile member in his right hand. It wasn’t as red as it had been, nor as stiff and upstanding, nor as large. She glanced back at his face. “What’s it called at the end, when it feels so good?”

“There are lots of names,” Black said. “Jouissance. Spasmes amoureux. And for men, décharger.”

“Décharger? You mean . . . like a pistol?”

Black opened his left hand. Cupped in his palm was a small amount of creamy liquid.

Nell stared at it. “Is that . . . ?”

“It’s what makes a woman pregnant,” Black said, and closed his left hand again. He released his virile member—much smaller than it had been, and quite limp now—and rummaged in his pocket.

Nell scrambled off his lap and straightened her gown, trying—and failing—to smooth away the creases.

Black located a handkerchief, wiped his palm, and then tucked his virile member back into his drawers, stood, and fastened his clothing. When he was finished, he looked the perfect gentleman again. There was absolutely nothing to show that five minutes ago he’d had a braquemard tenting his breeches. But then, there was nothing to show that ten minutes ago his fingers had been inside her.

Nell felt a strange sense of anticlimax.

“Well, Nell?” Black asked. “Tell me I didn’t go too far?” There was a note in his voice that it took her a moment to recognize—uncertainty, a hint of anxiousness.

“You didn’t. In fact, you may go further if you wish.” And she blushed at her wantonness.

Black shook his head. “Not tonight. Our first time is not going to be on a sofa.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Nell said, still blushing.

“I would mind,” Black said, and he took her hand and pulled her into a hug. “I want it to be good, Nell. I want it to be something you’ll never forget.”

Nell was certain their first time together would be unforgettable whether Black made love to her in a bed, on a sofa, or on the floor. But he was the expert, the rake. “All right,” she said, and tried not to feel disappointed.

Black tilted her chin up with one finger and smiled at her with his eyes. “Tomorrow night, Nell, if you want.” He kissed her lightly. “Or next week. Or next month. There’s no rush.”

“Tomorrow night,” Nell said.

“If that’s what you wish.”

“It is,” Nell said, feeling wanton and shameless and amoral—and her cheeks betrayed her again in a blush. I ought to be ashamed of myself. But she wasn’t. Because she knew that sharing Mordecai Black’s bed would be worth abandoning one’s virtue for—and now that she’d made that decision, she didn’t want to wait. “Or we could do it tonight.”

She saw a tiny flare in his dark eyes and realized that even though Black was preaching slowness, he wanted to go fast just as much as she did—but then he shook his head. “Not tonight. I haven’t had a bath.”

Nell opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t mind—and then closed it again. She hadn’t had a bath either, and the day had been hot and sticky, and if she was going to share Black’s bed, she definitely needed to wash first—and on the heels of that thought, all her shyness and nervousness came tumbling back. To be intimate with Mordecai Black meant being naked with him, it meant being more exposed and vulnerable than she’d ever been in her life.

A faint flicker of panic kindled in Nell’s breast. All Black’s lovers had been beautiful, experienced women. Compared to them she would be gauche and ordinary and disappointing. What if he regrets taking me to his bed?

Black smiled down at her, and there was such tenderness on his face, such tenderness in his dark eyes, that the panic folded in on itself and was extinguished. It was impossible to feel gauche and disappointing when he was looking at her like that. Impossible to feel shy and afraid.

“Tomorrow night, Nell,” he said, and she heard the promise in his voice.